Trudeau announces new legal framework for Indigenous rights

The government will create a legal framework for Indigenous people’s rights, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday.

“Together we will take concrete action to build a better future, a better Canada for Indigenous peoples and for all Canadians,” said Trudeau.

The framework intends to draft new ways to recognize and implement Indigenous rights through new legislation. The government will also use this rights-based framework to guide all its interactions with Indigenous peoples and to advance self-determination, including the “inherent right of self-government.”

The contents of this new legislation hasn’t yet been determined, but will be carved out of consultation efforts led by Crown-Indigenous relations minister Carolyn Bennett.

Consultations will go into the spring. Trudeau also committed today to ensure it is implemented before the next federal election, saying “We know that we cannot regain what has been lost. What we can do, what we must do is to commit to being better, to doing better.”

Speaking to reporters, Bennett and justice minister Jody-Wilson Raybould did not provide concrete details of what the framework will look like.

However, Bennett insisted that this framework will work to ensure that rights will no longer “be extinguished in the way that was, in the past, a real barrier to people wanting to (move) towards self governance.”

Justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said she was “proud” to sit in the House as this framework was introduced, but acknowledged that it won’t be easy to accomplish.

“This is complicated. This is undoing…150 years of the colonial legacy,” said Wilson-Raybould.

Opposition parties tentatively welcomed the announcement. Some, including NDP MP Romeo Saganash, were skeptical that the words will translate into action.

“We need to make sure that this time it is for real. One of the most unacceptable things politicians can do is to…quash the hope of the most vulnerable in our society,” said Saganash.

“I will not let that happen again.”

Conservative MP Cathy McLeod also vowed to watch the process closely.

Trudeau pre-emptively tackled brewing concerns that this proposed framework could force government to open up the Constitution.

He said the government is “finally fully embracing and giving life” to Section 35 of the Constitution, which already enshrines Indigenous rights.

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We elected the son of a former Primeminister. He comes from wealth. He’s never had to worry about money. His biggest let downs in life are trivial in comparison to the average Canadian. Of course he’s going to be a social justice warrior. He equates his wealth, his successes to him being white….not him being lucky. He feels guilty for his successes, because he doesn’t believe he deserves them….he’s right. So, he places his flag deep inside some minority encampment, and he fights no matter the evidence, the facts or the statistics. I would bargain that if Natives began shooting white farmers – that they would have our Prime Ministers support.